Characterization of low dimensional molybdenum sulfide nanostructures

It is presented a detailed structural characterization of a nanostructured form of molybdenum disulfide. The material consists of a layer of highly textured molybdenum sulfide growing off a molybdenum dioxide core. The structure and chemical composition of the synthesized nanostructured sulfide was compared to two well-known forms of molybdenum disulfide, i.e. a commercial molybdenite sample and a poorly crystalline sulfide. X-ray diffraction, high-resolution electron microscopy and electron diffraction showed that the material reported here presents crystalline nanodomains with a crystal structure corresponding to the 2H polytype of molybdenum disulfide. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was used to demonstrate the differences between our sulfide and other materials such as amorphous MoS₃, oxysulfides and poorly crystalline MoS₂, corroborating the molybdenite-2H stacking in this form of sulfide. The material under study showed a high proportion of crystalline planes different from the basal plane.